This past weekend saw a very special event at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, it was Prom Night. And while that might not seem like such a big deal, Mt. Edgecumbe is a boarding school and the students are from all over Alaska so a prom IS a big deal that they wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity or the resources to attend. Fortunately, thanks to a group of Alaska Airlines employees who donate dresses and volunteer to help the kids get ready, they created an event known as Prom Princess, and what would have been only a dream for the kids; became a reality.

Ivy Lanthier, the Dorm Director at Mt. Edgecumbe High School, Told us why he felt it was so important to the students. "There's four hundred students, they're from about a hundred different villages, there is no parents here to help them prepare for the prom and so in a sense the volunteers from Alaska Airlines and my staff begin to serve that role, they provide all of the things that a family would provide to a young person except that our kids are away from home."

The Creator of Prom Princess, Terri Bogren of Alaska Airlines, tells us how it all began. "And I knew that a lot of the students here didn't really go to the prom because they couldn't afford the dresses so it was my idea to kind of get a donation program together for the dresses and coming in and doing hair and makeup for the students. All of the stuff is donated, all of the items that we bring in are donated and this year we probably got about three hundred dresses and we also got menswear this year for the guys."

Andrew Friske, the Dorm Principal at the school, also related how meaningful the event is to the students. "You know a lot of the students don't have this opportunity you know to be pampered and to get these beautiful dresses fit to their size and to get all the makeup put on them, get a great haircut, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity for a lot of these students and you know like I said it's the highlight of the year at Mt. Edgecumbe High School."

And a student at Mt. Edgecumbe, Auna Springer, provided her personal feelings of Prom Princess. "This is my second year here I'm a sophomore and I've never got to go to any other Prom but the fact that we have like people who come in to help us with our hair and our makeup and do our nails, got my nails done, it's amazing."

Prom Princess is now in its 4th year and thanks to Alaska Airlines and its generous employees, it's an event that truly means something to kids that are so far from home.